The official Sad Café website

For a few years in the late 70s and early 80s, Sad Café may just have been the best live band on the planet. Their charismatic and under-rated front man, Paul Young, was a mix of every great rock band leader you’ve ever seen but he had an energy and personality that was all his own and which put him ahead of the pack.

The solid-as-a-rock rhythm section of Dave Irving and Des Tong, the guitar pyrotechnics of Ashley Mulford, and those virtuoso keyboards from Vic Emerson were pulled into shape by Paul’s right-hand man, Ian Wilson who added rhythm guitar and exquisite harmonies to the mix.

At their commercial peak, their single “Everyday Hurts” sold 600,000 copies but there was so much more to Sad Café than that ballad. Listen to Paul out-Jagger Mick on “My-Oh-My”, and tap into the whole of their albums from the progressive “Fanx Ta-ra” to 1989’s “Whatever it Takes” which has all that is good about that decade’s melodic rock.

Paul Young of Sad Café sadly passed away in 2000, but in 2009 and early 2010 the band gathered to complete an album using the vocal tracks that Paul had just finished at the time of his sudden passing.

Browse the site for news of the new album, photographs taken over more than 30 years, biographies of every band member, video archives, latest news from Dave Irving and more.

Sad Café’s new activity means that there is no better time than now to discover this band who were without doubt one of Manchester’s finest.